Until the mid-15th century, they were only allowed to live within a designated area (near today's Słowackiego Street). In the mid-15th century, a wave of pogroms and expulsions swept across Silesia, inspired by the preaching of Catholic clergymen, most prominently John of Capistrano. It also affected the Jews of Żagań. In 1462, the last Piast dynasty ruler of Żagań, Duke John II, expelled them from the town.

The Jews did not return to Żagań until the beginning of the 19th century. In 1857, the local Jewish community purchased a medieval bastion on the municipal meadow from the town authorities for 1,000 thalers and converted it into a synagogue. It was located at the junction of today's Jana Pawła II Street and Wolności Square. The building measured 22 × 6.5 m. Its entrance wall was rounded. Above the main entrance, on the pediment, there were two boards with inscriptions in Hebrew. The inscription on the upper board read: “This house is the house of God for all people.” The inscription below: “This door has been consecrated to the Lord, the righteous should enter through it.” Inside there was a foundation plaque with an inscription in German: “This temple was built in 5617 by the collective and unanimous effort of the members of the Jewish community in Żagań...” During the Kristallnacht (9/10 November 1938), the synagogue was set on fire and Jewish shops were destroyed. Even before 1945, a weeping willow was planted at the former site of the synagogue. It grows there to this day.

The Jewish community in Żagań owned meadows and arable fields around the town, a timber yard (the so-called Holzhof), and a Jewish school and ritual slaughterhouse on Wilhelmstraβe (nowadays Podchorążych Street). In 1880, the community had 170 members, but it later began to gradually shrink in size. In 1932, there were only 100 Jews among the town’s 18,000 inhabitants. After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, this number further decreased to 78, and in 1937 – to 30. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, only seven Jews lived in Żagań.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery was located in the western part of the town, on the so-called Heather Hill (German: Heideberg). In the later years, leading to it was a road called Lessingstraße (today Berka Joselewicza Street). It is a relatively modern cemetery, established in 1813; the location of the earlier medieval cemetery is unknown. In 1825, widow Hülse financed the construction of the cemetery wall. In 1838, the town established a cemetery for the local women's prison in the immediate vicinity of the Jewish necropolis, but it was later moved to the area of today's Nocznickiego Street. In 1857, the community enlarged the Jewish cemetery, purchasing an adjacent plot of land with an area of 150.42 rods. In 1862, it bought additional land with an area of 790 square metres and erected a small mortuary.

The cemetery was devastated during World War II. The cemetery gate was removed. On 2 September 1943, Treasury President for Lower Silesia Wapenhausen stated that “the sight of the Jewish cemetery is one of utter devastation. All the monuments are overturned, and the tombstones are mostly broken. The local youths are causing further damage.” However, local historians from Żagań have reached different conclusions, arguing that the cemetery survived World War II without major damage and only started to fall into decay at the turn of the 1970s. In any case, the actual liquidation of the above-ground part of the cemetery began in the early 1970s. The surviving slabs were used to repair the surface of Waryńskiego Street. The cemetery grounds were levelled and taken over by the signal corps. After the army left the premises in the early 1980s, an allotment garden complex was founded at the site. It still exists today.

In the summer of 1999, Żagań was visited by a group of Jews whose ancestors were buried in the local cemetery. They wanted to go to the necropolis, but the person showing them around the town, wishing to spare them the view of what was left of the site, claimed not to know its location. Afterwards, several Żagań councillors made efforts to liquidate the allotments and properly commemorate the cemetery, but these have so far been unsuccessfully.

Właściciel praw autorskich do opisu: Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN.